Question about mealworms

[Kinra]

Okay first of all I HATE bugs. They freak me out for reasons I don't fully understand. I can handle the mealworms because I don't have to touch them and can easily move them from the container to feeding dishes with tweezers.

Well some of them have been morph into bettles and I have two questions about the bettle form: 1.) Can/will they fly? 2.) Can they get out of air holes in a tub?

I really don't want these things loose in my apartment. >__<

[Clementine_3]

Nope, they don't fly at all. They just crawl around and lay eggs, you can start a colony if you want...free worms!
Get a small bin and put some oatmeal/wheat germ/baby rice cereal (good whole grainy thingies) in it, add the beetles and let 'em have at it. Keep a bin for worms and one for beetles/eggs/baby worms. Every now and again switch bins around, when the worms run low in one and the other bin's worms get big.
Never ending supply of worms, so easy to do.

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[Enigmatic Reptiles]

Well answering both questions...Yes they can fly but VERY few will. As far as escaping through air holes...they are a hard shelled beetle, SO if the holes are big enough then yes they will but you should not have air holes big enough for them to escape.

Mealworms have approximately 5 sheds before they will pupate and then 2 weeks or so to become their adult beetle form. The only way to slow this process down is to refrigerate them. Depending on what you are feeding you can also consider superworms. These will not pupate while in a colony so you have "worm" for a much longer period. I personally breed my own supers and buy mealies only when I don't have appropriate size for babies or sometimes geckos will refuse supers due to the defensive fluid they secrete sometimes. This fluid is similar to the stink bug fluid when a beetle, but has no smell as a worm.